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Friday, October 30, 2015

I chose to play Blood Angels in our campaign because I wanted to put them on the tabletop again. I figured that there wouldn't be too many changes compared to my Executioners, who I've gotten pretty comfortable with. After all, Marines are Marines, right? That's what all the xenos players say anyway.

The first question that I want to discuss is Tactical squads, specifically how to arm the sergeants. With Codex: Space Marines, I never charged my Tactical Marines into combat. They would always do more damage with shooting. Conversely, I find that I keep charging Blood Angels Tactical squads into assault. Two obvious reasons for this are that their flamers mean that they end up closer to the enemy, and they are better in assault than their Codex counterparts due to Furious Charge and Red Thirst.

Monday, October 26, 2015

My second campaign game was against Necrons. Once again, my force had to be organized as a Allied Detachment. I rolled Artisan of War for my Warlord trait, so my Captain's power sword is master-crafted.

My opponent had to take an Allied Detachment as well, as dictated by the campaign rules.

Nemesor Zahndrekh

5 Immortals w/ tesla carbines
Nightscythe

10 Immortals w/ gauss blasters

5 Deathmarks

5 Wraiths w/ whip coils

Deathscythe

Captain Castigon breathed the fresh air deeply, happy to be out of the Apothecarion after his grevious wounding by the Genestealers. He was still getting used to his repaired flesh and fresh bionics, but he had insisted on leading another patrol, this one into the forests surrounding the Hive Capital of Liani Alpha, Renetta City. He was joined by a similar force, but had chosen to leave the Devastators in the capital, where the firepower would be most useful. Instead, a Stormraven with Tactical Squad Belero remained within reach. Castigon vowed to not be wrong-footed again.

Squad Razak reported movement ahead over the vox. Brother-Captain Castigon bounded forward, his jump pack easily allowing him to catch the squad's Rhino. Ahead, he could make out serpentine metallic forms, blinking in and out of visibility. Necrons...

He voxed the Stormraven to begin its approach. Necrons almost always meant air support was required.

Friday, October 23, 2015

I finally painted up the last of my Baal Predators. This is the third of the newer plastic kit, and my fourth if you include my ancient plastic metal hybrid Baal, which desperately needs to be stripped and repainted. This is also the first Blood Angels tank that I've painted by layering up from Mephiston Red, rather than painting it Blood Red and shading the recesses.

Monday, October 19, 2015

I kicked off our campaign with a 1,000 point game against Tyranids. I took the following list, organized as an Allied Detachment.

Captain w/ artificer armor, inferno pistol, power weapon, jump pack

10 Death Company w/ jump packs, 2 power fists

10 Tactical marines w/ combi-flamer, flamer, heavy flamer, Rhino

10 Assault Marines w/ veteran sergeant, power fist, 2 meltaguns

5 Devastators w/ 4 missile launchers

I was trying to a fluffy, well-rounded list, and the Allied Detachment kind of forces you to. My opponent had a more open list, as we agreed it was more fluffy for Tyranids.

Deathleaper

Lictor

Lictor

Lictor

Children of Liani (Cryptus)

8 Genestealers w/ Broodlord, toxin sacs

8 Genestealers

Sporefield: 3 Mucolid Spores, 3 units of 3 Spore Mines

Brother-Captain Michele Castigon was beginning to regret his decision to lead this patrol himself. He had been chafing in the Blood Angels' defensive role preparing for the incoming invasion. Reports of creatures moving in the underhive had given him an excuse to take the offensive. He had taken his strike force's Death Company as well, as the unbalanced Marines were becoming a liability with no battle to vent their rage.

However, the tight constraints and darkness of the underhive weren't optimal for the force that he'd brought, and Squad Razak's Rhino floundered in the rough terrain. He was about to order the force to return to their base when a scuttling shape in the darkness caught his eye. Moments later, reports rang out on the vox, as multi-limbed shapes began moving into view all around the patrol.

Brother-Captain Castigon keyed his vox to the command frequency, relaying his message to the rest of his Company on the surface.

"There are Tyranids in the underhive. Send reinforcements immediately."

We set up the table to be a battle in the underhive, with the Blood Angels investigating suspicious activity that could interfere with the defense of the planet. Because it was the underhive, we left Night Fight in effect for the whole game. The mission was Crusade, with Dawn of War deployment.

Friday, October 16, 2015

These two Devastators with missile launchers have been sitting on my shelf for years (at least since before I started the Executioners), so I'm definitely getting to the bottom of my queue as I attempt to finish painting everything I have. They're painted using my new layering style for Blood Angels, but they fit in okay with my older Devastators.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

As you've probably gathered from the fluff bits I've been posting over the last couple weeks, I'm starting a campaign with my gaming group. It will be 3 Imperial players versus 3 Xenos players. Here are the rules I came up with for it. I based them heavily on the Badab War campaign. Let me know what you think.

Players

Players must choose a primary and secondary codex, which
they will maintain for the entirety of the campaign. Their Primary Detachment
must always be chosen from their primary codex, while secondary detachments can
be chosen from either.

Armies are encouraged to be as accurate to the background as
possible. This isn’t a cut-throat tournament, but a narrative campaign. Please
keep that in mind.

Teams

At the beginning of the campaign, players should be assigned
to each of the two teams (Attacker and Defender) as evenly as possible. They
should stay on the same team for the entirety of the campaign. If the number of
players becomes very uneven due to drop-outs, the Campaign Master may ask some
players to become traitors and switch sides to re-balance the teams.

Campaign Phases

Each campaign phase lasts for a month. During this time,
players may play as many games as possible against members of the opposite
team. In case some players are unable to set up games against members of the
other team, each player will be allowed to count 1 games played against outside
players per phase. This should be scored exactly as normal, with the outside
player counting as a member of the opposite team of their opponent. This
represents clashes with forces moving through the area and taking advantage of
the chaos.

Players may choose to play any mission in any part of the
campaign, though some missions are worth extra points in each phase. Players
may always agree to choose one of these missions, or roll to randomly determine
which of these missions to play.

At the end of each phase, each team adds up the number of
campaign points earned by all of their players. The team with more campaign
points wins that phase and gains the appropriate reward. The campaign points
then reset, with both sides starting off each phase with 0 points.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Bright reds are a very difficult color to paint well. I've been painting Blood Angels for almost twenty years now, and I'm still figuring out new ways to paint red. My preferred method now is to start with a base of Mephiston Red and layer up through lighter reds, but some times you have to go in the other direction and add darker shading to a lighter red. I've had to do much of this when refurbishing my older models, adding shading to the recesses of models that I originally painted flat red.

The best way I've found to do this is to carefully paint washes into the recesses, darkening them. I tried GW's Carroburg Crimson, but I found that it wasn't dark enough for what I wanted. I've found two Secret Weapon Washes that work really well, depending on what you want.

Friday, October 9, 2015

I assembled this fellow just after the current Blood Angel codex came out, primarily so that I could have a model to carry Gallian's Staff. He's cobbled together from a number of different kits. Mostly, he's from the Dark Angels Veterans kit, with a gun arm from a Sanguinary Guard and a Death Company Jump Pack. The force staff is from a Grey Knight Terminator, with a Blood Angel banner topper. I think he looks suitably Librarianish.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

+++Prioris Maxima

In the name of the glorious Emperor of Mankind, the duly anointed Governor Auriol of the Liani System, Sovereign of Liani Alpha, requests aid from all available forces of the Imperium. We have detected multiple xenos forces approaching the system. An Ork Kruzer initially appeared from Warp within system, matching the markings of a Warband previously repulsed from Liani Sigma. Sensor scans of the ship revealed that they are being shadowed by Tyranid ships, apparently a Splinter Fleet of Hive Fleet Scylla. Finally, Necron ships have appeared within our system's asteroid belt, slaughtering our citizens and before approaching Liani Alpha from in-system.

Our Planetary Defense Forces are unable to engage forces of this magnitude. We request any available aid at all haste.

Monday, October 5, 2015

This Spring, I picked up a couple Windsor Newton Series 7 brushes. They're amazing brushes, but they were expensive, so I picked up a few products to keep them clean and in good condition. Now that I've spent some time with them, I figured it would be a good time to write up a review.

The first product I picked up was Windsor and Newton Brush Cleaner and Restorer. This is a thin liquid that you soak your brushes in to remove paint. It does a good job of cleaning brushes with dried on paint, even paint inside the ferrule. It's slow working though, and I found the best results from soaking the brush bristles overnight.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Here's my latest model, my Eighth Company Captain. I spent a long time trying to decide where to use this model, as it's a great sculpt but his power fist doesn't fit well in my Blood Angels and the Executioners use Headman's Axes in place of power fists. I finally decided that he would be an Executioner, and justified his power fist in his background. I replaced his bolt pistol with a storm shield and he was ready for painting.